Thanks to John for this solution:

“Well after lots of experimenting and a call to Microsoft. Here are my results. I have been able to successfully restore the ENTIRE farm to a new server with a new name, a new SQL server, and even change the port numbers or website urls of the web applications. There are 3 main ways to restore. Through SharePoint Designer (did not try) through the stsadmin command line (or GUI within the Central Administration website) and through SQL and some recreation.”

“I originally tried to use the GUI to restore but this ONLY works if your website is pristine. No changes, no modifications and no port sharing with host headers for the web applications. Even with the site being pristine the restore of the SSP seemed to always fail. If you use this method you might get your sites back up but you will have to recreate your SSP. Not really an option since we all know how bad change management is.”

“After speaking with MS support the best way to restore a farm is through SQL backups. Below are the steps that I took and it worked 3 times.”

1. Install SharePoint on the new server.
2. Run the configuration wizard to connect it to the new SQL server. If you are connecting to the same SQL server delete (I would backup first) the Admin Content and Config databases. The configuration wizard will recreate these.
3. Install the same updates and services packs as on the original server. I did this with SP 2007 SP1. Make sure you run the configuration updates after the service packs.
4. Restore your website content databases and your two shared services databases (SharedServices1_DB and SharedServices1_Search_DB for example). In my case I had only three web applications. Portal, MySite, and SSPAdmin or 5 databases all together. Don t worry about the search database. You will have to recrawl your website anyway. MAKE SURE THE DATABASE NAMES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS THEY WERE ORIGINALLY.
5. Recreate your web applications. My case they were portal, mysite, sspadmin. When you create them this is your chance to change a URL or a port number or enter a host header. When you get to the database name, put in a fake name such as WSS_Portal_DeleteMe. You will delete this database later. Do this for all your webapplications.
6. Next step is to remove the temp database from each web application and attach the real database you restored in step 4. To do this go to Central Administration -> Application Management -> Content Databases. Select the web application you would like to change. Select the database name (for example WSS_Portal_DeleteMe). Check the box in the next screen to remove content database. You should now see no database attached to the web application (it also remove it off the sql server). Select add a content database. For the database name put the name in EXACTLY as you restored it which should be EXACTLY like it originally was. Don t worry about the Search Server field since you have not started that service yet. Do this for all your web applications. You now have three new web applications attached to your 3 restored content databases.
7. Start required services on new server. Go to Central Administration -> Operations -> Services on Server. Start the Windows SharePoint and Office SharePoint searches. Let it create a new database.
8. Restore your SSP (these are the other two databases you restored earlier). Central Admin -> App Management -> Manage this farm’s shared services (Click in the Shared Services link on the left!). Select Restore SSP. Name the SSP (Can use the same name as before SharedServices1 or change it. I would leave it so it matches the DB name) Make sure you select your SSPadmin and MySite web applications your created earlier and your restored database names. Do I have to mention again to make sure the names are exact! Select the index server (it is now available since you started the service). You will get a warning stating you are changing the association of the existing web applications. Click OK.
9. Install any 3rd party web parts or custom ASPX pages before you try and open the site so it does not mess with any formatting.
10. Open your SSP website and start a full crawl and user import. You should notice that all your SSP settings are still there.
11. Since you did not restore the Sharepoint_AdminContent database you will have recreate things like smtp server names. These are all easy things that can be found off the main Central Admin Page. You should even go through the steps they list and complete each one.

You should now have a fully functioning SharePoint site on a new server with a new sql server.

“So, what am I backing up? I am taking SQL backups of all the databases I listed above as well as all the 3rd party web parts and customizations to things installed in the 12 folder. You could back up that entire folder if you like since it is not very big.”

More From pstilgoe

• How to embed a powerpoint presentation into a Sharepoint page
• How to add extra servers to your MOSS 2007 / Sharepoint Farm
• How to configure Kerberos for SharePoint / MOSS 2007

Ask pstilgoe To Recommend Your Posts